Mac App Store: Automatic security updates

Learn about automatic security updates on your Mac.

Automatic security updates

Some critical security updates for your Mac are released as automatic updates. Your Mac checks for these updates daily, and when an automatic security update is available, it installs automatically and displays a notification.

Turn off automatic security updates

If you would like to always manually download and install security updates, you can set System Preferences to do so.

In System Preferences, click the App Store icon, and deselect these options:

Automatically check for updates

Download newly available updates in the background

Install system data files and security updates

If you deselect these options, you also turn off automatic checks for all software updates. To check for software updates, open App Store on your Mac, then click Updates in the App Store toolbar.